IndustryGamers - Informing the Games Industry

Tony Hawk Developer Robomodo Sees 20% Growth Despite RIDE's Failure

Posted March 2, 2010 by James Brightman

Activision's Tony Hawk: RIDE, by most accounts, was an abysmal failure, to the point where Tony Hawk himself seemed to take the criticism personally. Nevertheless, Activision recently confirmed that RIDE will indeed be receiving a sequel supporting the board peripheral later this year. That's good news for developer Robomodo, which will have a chance to address the issues that plagued RIDE.

Curiously, although RIDE didn't light up the sales charts, Robomodo credited the game's "success" for the studio's growth. IndustryGamers has contacted Activision, asking for a sales total. We'll update if we get a figure back. [Update: Activision has not replied, but NPD has told us that in the U.S. life-to-date sales now stand at 550K units, which is admittedly better than we thought, but is still not good enough to be viewed as a "success" or a real breakout hit in our book, especially considering that Activision had to put a lot of R&D into that board - which quickly saw its price slashed at retail to spark sales.]

"Since the launch of high-selling Tony Hawk: RIDE, Robomodo has grown by 20%, increasing in all areas of the studio, including art, engineering, production, and design," the company stated. "This growth has propelled them to be one of the largest game studios in the Chicago area. The company is currently looking to grow an additional 17%, looking to fill positions in all areas across the company to work on projects across all platforms."

“Due to the retail success of Tony Hawk: RIDE, interest in Robomodo has grown. As a result, we are looking to add to our strong and experienced team,” added Josh Tsui, President of Robomodo. “Our culture is focused on enabling game designers and artists to innovate, while providing them with proper management oversight and technology support. As evidence from our recent game release, Robomodo supports out-of-the-box thinking and new creative ways to approach gameplay.”

With studio closures and layoffs all too common these days, it's nice to see Robomodo expanding. We wish them the best of luck in turning around the Tony Hawk franchise.

James Brightman has been covering the games industry since 2003 and has been an avid gamer ever since the days of Atari and Intellivision. He was previously the EIC of GameDaily Biz.